Oh, and how the years go
by soughtstory
Summary: there's something about the gap in his years that makes Gon nostalgic. short, slight killugon. based off tumblr prompt.


there's something about the gap in his years that makes Gon nostalgic. short slight killugon. based off tumblr prompt.

 **PROMPT** \- _'You're taking a road trip in a 5 seater car. Each seat is filled with you, but at various points in your life. One of you strikes up a conversation.'_

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 **WARNING** \- again, this is all off the top of my head with no organization. i seem to have a knack for falling in love with ideas that i can never seem to write. as well as having to mess around with Gon's character but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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Surprisingly, for a quintet of Gon's, the car was silent.

Besides from the jostle of music, the faint tremor in the air was never acknowledged. Whether twelve noticed or not, knees propped against cushioned seating to peer through the window at the blur of autumn, twenty-six didn't know. His fingers, blown thick with youth and sunlight, tapped rhythmical against the static screen of raindrops. Counting out the ones that one in their slant downwards.

"Eighteen," sudden chorus catches his throat, wrestles it into thick question as the teenager looks up, unhooking his knees - long now, longer than when he was twelve once - from where they're propped at the back of the passengers seat, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah!"

"Am I still friends with him?"

Curious shyness pokes through the hesitant smile on twelve's mouth, and twenty-six can't help but beam at the blossom of red across eighteen's cheeks. He sinks down, with no long air like Killua's to hide the addictive grin that smudges his mouth wide. "Yeah, almost as if he never left."

"Sometimes, you'll wish he did," comments twenty-six as a curve comes ahead, fingers swinging them wide. At the turn, though slack-jawed at the revelation, twelve and eighteen giggle at the feeling, like a waterfall in their stomachs. However, when they're still again, twelve peers up.

"What do you mean?"

Twenty-six smiles; remembers old fights and frost-bitten evenings and can't help but sigh fondly. "Killua can tear houses down if he feels like it; _especially_ when angry. And you'll fight, _alot_. And you'll sometimes wish that years later, you never joined back up at the world tree," something falls in twelve, eighteen's fingers gripping the seat as they lean in, all ears and wobbly fear in lockjaw, "but not a day goes by that you aren't glad you met him."

"I can say the same," thirty-two is half-awake, held wide-eyed by a constant tick in his chest. When they'd met, he'd almost terrified twelve with the creak in his years - taxes and bills and a life in so many different places will wither you, will make you tired. But still, there is a light in his eyes that never went out.

It's still there when he fishes through his phone, flipping through a bag of memories, head tilting in love and fondness. "You _especially_ think it when you see him with his kid. _Adorable._ "

"Killua has a kid?" Twelve leans over, ignoring the barked orders of twenty-six to not climb out of his seat belt, but then again - he never did listen to orders, "W-With who?"

Twenty-six blinks awake in the front seat, mildly intrigued into the conversation. Twelve is slack jawed, filled with the childish curiosity that over the years had, sadly, vanished when reality fell into step beside him. It is only eighteen, blush a furious traitor to his shaking heart, that grips the seat with enough force to rip into it as he leans closer.

But it is not thirty-six that answers from his window seat, nor eighteen that guesses at names plucked from his well of memory. Twenty-six makes no move to voice his own inquiries because in the middle seat, all weathered wisdom and power in unforgotten waves, is seventy-three. He sits like marble, muscles picked clean of youth and vitality, only bleeding raw strength beneath the robes that line with hunter insignia, a small boar pin clipped to the lapel. Distantly, he feels like Netero, but _not,_ not there _yet._ Not yet.

"Believe me, twelve, you know him pretty well," his legs cross, taking up too much room and completely unapologetic, in the way only Gon can be without jostling any feathers. His hair is grey now, almost mimicking Killua's in it's colour, but the spikes are still there. The boy is still there. "You're gonna be so happy one day, and it's gonna sneak up on you when you least expect it. Like you found something you forgot about in your pocket."

And twenty-six averts his eyes, fingers ghosting past his own where a lump sits comfortably, a stone to keep him in place, and he tugs at the gear shift. The car stumbles forwards, the long drive coming into view.

Twelve settles back into place, grinning, speaking quickly of how happy he is for Killua, how he can't wait to meet whoever had taken his best friend's heart. And eighteen sits back, eyes darting until they meet with twenty-six's in the front mirror, whose sure nod has his mouth splaying wide with hope, hope, hope.

Thirty-six chuckles, tapping away pictures of an older Killua, holding a little girl with black hair upside down. The same girl and a boy climbing over him half asleep. The little girl, asleep in his arms, Killua wearing one of Gon's old shirts.

Seventy-three sighs, eyes shifting closed as the car comes to a halt, as the road from the store becomes less bumpy and more grass, more childhood-home-coming-into-view. As the veranda shrinks, as the car comes up to the garage, twenty-six catches seventy-three's eye. it is marred with wrinkles, a soft scar over it from when he cut it in the Zoldyck butler's estate - but it is knowing. It is powerful. And it can see right through him.

"Gon?"

Gon jumps, fingers slipping from the steering wheel at the muffled voice, peering up to find long, pale fingers tapping against the window. He rolls it down, meeting the smiling, hooked corner of Killua's mouth as he leans over the threshold.

"Killua..."

"Hey, you've been gone for a while; you okay?" Sleek, white brows turn inwards, a ball of concern knotting at the junction until Gon pulls an awkward smile into his mouth, giving Killua every reason to mirror it. He leans down, into the car and pecks at his mouth, laughing. "You know what, never mind. I'll get the shopping from the back, you run in and get the drinks ready; Leorio and Kurapika are coming over."

Gon nods, pushing away the uncertainty, the rock in his pocket. As Killua walks away though, he swears he hears him say, "Couldn't have been talking to himself; but then again, that _is_ Gon."

The man looks back, towards where the figures of his life once stood and shudders a breath out through his teeth. Oh, but Killua, he _was._


End file.
